In terms of authoritarianism, the absolutely opposite coast is on the same riverbank. It seems a rhetorical illusion, but explains the very opposite in totalitarianism and other authoritarian regimes. On the other shore is the center: liberal democracy.
That is why leaders and dictatorships of Latin America that are self-perception of the left, and leaders such as Trump, Bolsonaro and the European ultra-right, agree to admire Vladimir Putin.
Nazi-fascist leaders, like Lenin and Stalin standing on the opposite coast located on the same side of the river, were influenced by Gustav Le Bon. At the end of the 19th century, the promoter of social psychology wrote in his book “The psychology of the masses and the analysis of the self” that the crowds “are not thirsty for the truth, turn their backs on the evidence that does not fancy them and prefer to divinize the error if he seduces them.”
He bon rightly described the attraction he has in traumatic circumstances an authoritarian leadership, while managing to keep “an illusion” that the masses will defend from the person who questions or questions the leader who excites them.
“When fascism returns, it will do so in the name of freedom,” said Thomas Mann at a famous conference in 1940. There, the author of the Magic Mountain and Doctor Faustus predicted the arrival of democracy to Europe, where he still tried to extinguish the Nazi-Fascist axis.
The prediction of the German writer began to be fulfilled three years later in Italy and five in the rest of Europe, with the exception of Spain, Portugal and the East countries that were under the Soviet orbit. But there were other predictions in “the victorious arrival of democracy” that seem to be explained in the features he saw in the mass society.
Thomas Mánn explained that liberal democracy weakens when a part of society takes it for granted and another part considers it guilty of the evils that harass it. Then fascism will return and this time will “in the name of freedom.”
The European polls and other corners of the planet where liberal democracy, although languishing, is still standing, seem to give the reason to Mann and Le Bon. Also in the United States uncertainties suppurate brutal leaders. They are fed by the frustrations and fears generated by stalks on work and well -being that produces the acceleration of technological advancement.
Those authoritarian leadership knew how to interpret the anger and despair of society. They also knew how to generate popular anxiety, and use fuel the grudges and resentments of those who are willing to vomit hate about those who point to dangers that this type of leadership implies for liberal democracy, whose most successful description remains Churchill’s great irony: “The worst of the systems, with the exception of all others.”
During the Cold War, politics in Western Europe was divided between supporters of the USSR and supporters of the United States. Pro-Soviet were the communist parties, until, with the Italian Communist Party led by the brothers Enrico and Giovanni Berlinguer, the “EuroComunism” began to be born.
In the pro-western sidewalk were conservative nationalisms, such as gaullism, liberal center, social democrats and democratic parties practicing moderate conservatism and a cautious liberalism with labor rights because they were inspired by the social doctrine of the Church.
The Europe of recent decades includes countries that were satellites of the USSR, while all European parties remain divided, but with new ideological components. There are Pro-Poutin, Proput and European Union (EU) parties, which are Anti-Putin and Anti-Trump.
Since Putin monopolized power, Russia went from being a communist pole to being a conservative-culturalist pole.
Pro-Putin is not socialist or democristian or liberal parties, but the ultra-right strengthened by social support for their anti-immigrant preaching, ultra-critical and racist.
The pro-Russian leaders of Europe are also Trump party, that is, not from the United States but of the leader who governs Western power.
The traditional partisan (conservative, democratic, liberal and social democrats) wants to strengthen the EU so that it can defend Russia regardless of the United States, because Trump broke the historic Atlantist block.
Within the EU there are Quintacolumnistas such as the Pro-Putin Governments of Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia, headed by Viktor Orban, Robert Fico and Alexanar Vucic. In Germany, the AFD Fil-Nazi, financed by the Kremlin and by the magnate Trumpist Elon Musk, is already second force.
In the May 2025 elections faced the Pro-Putin and Pro-Trump parties with the EU supporters.
In Poland, Rafal Liberal Trzawski defeated the conservative Karol Nawrocki. Trzawski is an ally of the European president Donald Tusk, while Nawroscki is an outsider who had the support of the conservative party law and justice.
In Romania, the pro-Eue candidate, Nicusor Dan, beat George Simion, a Pro-Putin nationalist. The Romanian Government and the Europeanist forces denounced, again, Russian interference with Fake News campaigns from Telegram, Russian platform Pro-Putin Pavel Durov.
The previous election was annulled by Russian interference in favor of the ultra -nationalist Calin Georgescu.
In the early elections of Portugal, the Democratic Alliance Centrodechista, of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, whose government collapsed one year of having defeated the Socialist Party without reaching the necessary majority, so a year later he could not overcome a motion of confidence and had to advance the legislative elections.
Everything indicates that the necessary majority would now not reach, so Chega’s votes would need. And the Chega movement is the Portuguese version of the Spanish Filo-Franquista Party Vox.
By the way, in the United States there are also pro-Europe faced with those who are pro-entin. The seconds are the majority Trumpist of the Republican Party.
Also in Russia is this crack. Putin’s party against parties that ask for democracy and denounce criminal despotism. Many of the liberal-democratic forces are imprisoned, banned or died killed.
